In Equality Focus, we are planning to open an Info Session and Panel this year.

I don’t think we have decided on a topic, but the possible ones are: general information, coming out, and problems faced by the LGBTQ+ community in Singapore. The first topic was suggested because it would allow the audience to feel free to ask what they really want to know instead of restricting them to a specific topic. If we went with this topic, I think we would direct the Info Session and Panel to 8th graders, who are starting to seriously explore their identity, and 9th graders. The second topic was suggested because it is a common question that people like to ask, for both queer people and non-members of the community. This would make the session more focused on the panelists rather than the presentation. However, I think this would be more focused on students who are questioning their gender and/or sexual identity, or queer students who are “in the closet”. The last topic would place the focus of the session on advocacy and bringing awareness to domestic homophobia and transphobia. This topic can be directed for a wider audience, but we would probably concentrate on advertising the event to high school students because they would be better equipped to handle this topic and have a serious discussion.

Due to Covid 19, we decided to have a Zoom session instead of doing it in-person. This brings up many problems, mostly for students. One of the problems last year was that lunch time was too short to have the session, so we planned to have the Info Session and Panel after school. However, if we have a Zoom session, it could expose students to their parents that they are either in the LGBTQ+ community or interested in it. Not all parents may be very accepting or welcoming of such a development. Some parents are also very strict, so even if students decide to stay after school to have the Zoom session, they may still get into trouble with their parents. This might make a portion of the student population unwilling or reluctant to participate in the Info Session and Panel.

Due to Covid-19, Project Week has been cancelled. However, I still learned from the planning process, specifically about the issue we were going to address.

Our Project Week was a service-activity one. We were going to work with the organization Gili Eco Trust. We would initially focus on doing diving training and doing beach clean-ups. We were hoping that we would be able to work with them on their Biorock project.

This project uses Biorock technology to create artificial reefs to combat the bleaching of coral reefs, especially near Gili Island. I knew before the coral reefs were dying and that they were important, but I didn’t know why. While planning for Project Week, I learned the answer to my questions. Coral reefs are bleaching due to a variety reasons: coastal development, overfishing, inland pollution, climate change, and ocean acidification (which is caused by an excess of carbon dioxide emissions being absorbed by the world’s oceans). Coral reefs provide a home to thousands of species. Not only that, coral reefs also protect shores from the impact of waves and storms, can provide medicine and food to people, and provide economical benefits to coastal communities through tourism. If coral reefs are wiped out completely, the balance in the environment will be broken and it would severely impact communities living near coasts. Therefore, despite the Biorock project being focused on Gili Island’s environment, it has significant global value.

While we could not do it, we planned to work on the Biorock project in order to address this issue. The Biorock technology provide a sturdy surface for corals that are alive but aren’t rooted to substrate onto structures. This is done by a low voltage current that ultimately forms calcium carbonate around metal for the coral to attach to; the current also encourages the corals to grow faster and stronger. The coral reefs created from the Biorock project has proved to be more resilient than natural reefs, and thus a sustainable solution for coral reef bleaching.

Compared to when i started, my stance on coral reefs now has changed. Before, I felt that there was nothing that could be done to mitigate the damage on coral reefs other than addressing pollution and climate change. However, now, I realise that firstly, there are other areas we must address such as overfishing and secondly, that there are actions that can be taken to help coral reefs now.

Pink Dot is an annual event Equality Focus hosts at UWCSEA East in order for the community to show support of its LGBTQ+ members. It is usually held on the 22nd of March, or the week of. However, this year we must postpone, or even cancel, Pink Dot due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

In the beginning stages of readjusting the Pink Dot schedule, we planned to host the event a week or two after school reopened. Although, we managed to get the boarding house to wear pink on the original date even though the event had been cancelled. With the lockdown extended, it’s doubtful that we will be able to host Pink Dot this school semester and will only have to wait for next semester’s Pink Dot to come.

In the case that an incident occurs that postpones Pink Dot again in the future (although, hopefully not another pandemic), we should add into our planning to set an alternative date, or several, for Pink Dot. This way we can be prepared for any such circumstances and we will lower the chances of completely cancelling Pink Dot.

I helped plan out the Info Session and Panel as Equality Focus’ activity contribution to Human Rights Week and Write for Rights.

We managed to pull in enough people to fill up the venue, a classroom on fifth floor, which was encouraging. However, I also believe we should keep in mind that a noticeable portion of the audience were friends of Equality Focus members. Although, their presences still mean we are spreading information about gender, we might have to work harder on reaching and persuading a wider audience.

Because Equality Focus has done the Info Session and Panel before, we had a framework to work with. Most of the changes to our initial planning were the venue location and the time period for advertising the event. We couldn’t get into contact with the Voices for Refugees group to find out our venue for the event, and we couldn’t finalize the poster design without the venue information.

To solve the dilemma, I found the Voices for Refugees classroom and asked them in person our problem. They gave us our venue within a day. However, this meant our poster was completed on Friday, not leaving us much time to inform people. So, I decided to focus on advertising to the boarding house over the weekend then spend Monday morning and after school with the other two executives putting up posters around the school.

For the future, I would have to make sure our venue is decided early in the preparation process and that advertisement starts around two weeks before the event.

It wasn’t really a big, life-changing decision.

I was running with a partner and his mother, who ran as a guide. At one point, she mentioned that her son didn’t like people that much; he preferred not to be around or make friends with them; he was very solitary.

A goal of Running Hour, besides providing exercise for the differently abled, is to form connection and friendly relationships with runners. So, the partner’s preference to not make friends is a bit contrary to Running Hour’s goals.

I, myself, thought that such a isolating lifestyle isn’t healthy, socially or psychologically; there is a proverb “no man is an island” for a reason after all. However, when I thought that, I questioned my judgement.

I only met him that day. How could I know what’s good for him and what’s not? Perhaps his needs are different from mine, and being alone was easier for him. Was I right to try to impose my lifestyle onto him?

The mother, on the other hand, said that she used to work out more before but now most of her time is taken up by taking care of her son. Over the course of the day’s session, it seemed clear that she was more social than her son but couldn’t find her time; Running Hour was one of the only activities in which she could interact with people and exercise.

I realized that Running Hour, while directed for the differently abled and the elderly, was also for the parents and caretakers. Running Hour provided them time to relax and focus on things that were not those in their care, because their entire lives could not revolve around one person.

My decision was to provide encouragement and support to exercise to everyone, but offer social connections to the people who wanted them.

Stimulus:

In the opening monologue of Brown’s New York show, he says, “My story was that I had a secret, a big, dark secret I couldn’t possibly tell anyone. . . . I presumed that I was gay when I was fifteen, but I didn’t come out till I was thirty-one. Which is a very long time to be avoiding the subject of sex. No one must ever know. Which is silly, because when you do eventually come out you realize no one gives a fuck. Truly, nobody cares. Which is a little disappointing, something of an anticlimax. All the things about ourselves that we think are so terrible—to other people, it’s just a bit more information about us. We’d worry a lot less about what other people think of us if we realized how seldom they do.”

Brown actually came out a bit later—at the age of thirty-five to his friends and family, and publicly a year after. Since then, he has come to understand the toll of having kept that particular secret for so long. “Before coming out, you work—unconsciously, but you work—to sort of divert attention from those parts of yourself that you don’t want to expose,” he told me. “And even when all that’s sorted out it doesn’t take much to bring it all rushing back, particularly if you’re a magician, because you’re doing something fundamentally dishonest.”

In yesterday’s session (October 3, 2019), we had our first weekly discussion; the two paragraphs above were the stimulus. We agreed that Brown’s perspective was too narrow and relied too much on his own personal experience with his coming out. Naturally, there are some people who, when they come out, are surrounded by people who do not care. However, there are people who are surrounded by people who do care, and not always in a positive manner. There are people, especially teenagers, who have lost financial support from their parents by coming out; there are people who have been bullied, fired from their jobs, and even killed for trying to be true to themselves. Brown had a relatively safe coming out, which isn’t bad and is in fact great, but he applies his own experience to generalize about every LGBTQ+ member’s coming out experience.

Some of the members in Focus Equality shared their own coming out experiences. Some were positive and had their parents being accepting and supporting. Others had parents that while seemed apathetic or accepting, seemed to not believe that their child knew their actual sexuality, stating that as teenagers they don’t have enough experience to really know who they are attracted to. Additionally, while before could talk about sexuality freely, whenever the topic comes up, the atmosphere become awkward and the topic becomes hard to talk about. The latter reaction, I believe, has a large impact on LGBT people because they already had to face years of dealing with either internalized homophobia or doubt in their own sexuality and gender due to the hetero-normative and cisgender culture of the world; and having their own parents not believe them, people who should be believing in them, increases the doubt and shame.

The idea that by not coming out, you are being “fundamentally dishonest” is also something that we discussed. In a way, some people might feel dishonest, especially in a generation that says that we should all strive to be true to ourselves. And closeted people might find themselves blatantly lie to the people who they should be trusting, such as their parents or close friends. However, another opinion might be that LGBT people are forced to lie; they find themselves in an environment not safe for them to come out.

It’s important to discuss this topic because, especially as members of the LGBTQ+ community and a part of an accepting community like UWC, we become so comfortable in a bubble of safety and security in our sexuality and the support of the people around us that we forget or ignore that not everyone has the access to such experiences. We have to keep in mind that we all have different experiences when we discuss how things affect the LGBTQ+ community.

While I think it will be hard to make a global impact as we are only one small group in Singapore, I believe by discussing and planning to create a better environment with a more critical and open mindset, we can make a safer environment within UWC and influence people to take this acceptance with them when they graduate.

I would not say I am very athletic or physically fit, so Running Hour was something that was definitely out of my comfort zone in that sense. It was also out of my comfort zone because I had to interact with other people; my social skills are, at best, really lacking. In the beginning, I felt very much out of my depth and especially more so when I got separated from my friend, who I was relying on for support. Near the end, I still felt like I could’ve done more to create more conversation and be more engaging but I think I managed to do well in building a foundation for the relationship between my partner and I.

The target group for Running Hour were disabled people (intellectually or visually, as the service description says) and the elderly. It reminded me a bit of Evergreen because a part of the service’s goal was to try and make bonds with the people there. It’s different by the fact that I’m not only talking with them and doing indoor activities, but also running and walking laps.

During the service I’ve noticed some aspects I could improve on, mainly my physical health. Running Hour is not only about socialization but also about exercise and keeping fit, and keeping fit means pushing yourself to do more. And some of the participants didn’t want to do that. I feel that it is hard to try and motivate your partner to keep on jogging or running when you yourself are out of breath. There isn’t much that I can do in this aspect other than try to improve my stamina over time. It’s possible that I can try and make this a common ground and make a connection with my partner and try to push both of us to do better physically.

This weakness isn’t new or unexpected but it is very noticeable. I found, and will probably continue for some time, it difficult to start or continue a conversation. However, I did manage to get friendly enough to my partner in this session and managed to keep up a conversation for half a loop, and I do know more about her now. Hopefully, as I continue to go to Running Hour, I will learn more about the people there and manage to find more topics to approach.

In relation to that, I also found myself being unable to find ways to motivate my partner to work out. I don’t often like to feel like I’m being overbearing and that usually means I end up being a pushover. I think next time I should try to be a bit more firm and keep attempting to get my partner to continue jogging for a couple more laps and to participate in the exercises done after the loops. I’m thinking of asking her to set her own goal and trying to get her to achieve it. For example, Mr Jacobson wanted her to do six laps today but she wanted to do only two. However, in the end, she ended up only running one lap and walking the other four. I believe by asking her to set her own goals, she feels motivated and pushed to reach it and the sense of accomplishment will push her to setting higher goals instead of keeping things easy.